Category: World

The allies say the exercises are meant to improve capacity and prepare them to work together in the event of a conflict. But the drills have long been an irritant for Kim Jong Un’s regime, which views them as hostile and uses them to justify its weapons development and nuclear program. There are signs that a new cycle of escalation is already taking shape, with North Korea rejecting overtures and possibly preparing for a seventh nuclear test amid a diplomatic deadlock with Washington and shifting security dynamics in the region.

Biden visit showcases hardened stances on North Korea

Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s influential sister, blasted South Korea last week over the military drills and rebuffed South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s offer of economic benefits in exchange for denuclearization by Pyongyang. After Yoon’s announcement, North Korea launched two cruise missiles off its west coast, breaking a two-month testing hiatus.

“The U.S. and South Korea anticipate the exercises to draw an angry reaction from North Korea. But this is not a new concept. Kim has already laid the groundwork and justification for provocations,” said Soo Kim, policy analyst at the RAND Corporation in Washington. “In the face of an increasingly aggressive North Korea and little appetite for dialogue, the bandwidth to engage with the Kim regime seems very, very narrow at this point.”

The return of full-scale exercises, which run through Sept. 1, reflects the new conservative South Korean administration’s efforts to work more closely with the United States in responding to rising threats from North Korea, which carried out a volley of missile tests earlier this year.

Yet some experts warn that the U.S.-South Korea drills risk contributing to an increasingly volatile security climate in the region, as U.S. strategic competition with China intensifies and Beijing steps up military threats against Taiwan.

“While the allies’ exercises target North Korea threats, they have a multipurpose capability that can be leveraged in the wake of rising Asia tensions sparked by China risks,” said Hong Min, a senior fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

Preparations for the drills began last week with preliminary exercises between U.S. and South Korean forces. Earlier this month in Hawaii, the United States conducted missile defense exercises with South Korea and Japan for the first time since 2017, further demonstrating how the allies are seeking to work together under their respective new leaders.

“It demonstrates acknowledgment among all three governments of how intertwined their national security interests are, and the real need to advance their ability to operate together militarily to overcome challenges related to the military modernization of their adversaries” and to improve their ability to coordinate missile defense efforts, said S. Paul Choi, principal at StratWays Group, a Seoul-based geopolitical risk advisory firm.

China draws North Korea closer than ever as Biden visits region

In years of often fruitless negotiations with its neighbor, South Korea’s leaders have routinely dangled economic incentives for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

Last week, three months into his term, Yoon pitched his offer: Seoul would help with food aid, health care, agriculture and infrastructure in return for the North demonstrating a “firm will” for disarmament. But his proposal did not address the North’s desire for relief from international sanctions, and nor did it include security guarantees — raising concerns among some North Korea analysts that Yoon’s proposal echoed past failed efforts.

At the same time, Yoon has emphasized the need to be ready to counter any military threat, including by developing preemptive-strike capabilities in case of an imminent nuclear attack from the North.

“No matter how audacious the initiative is, we cannot make a concession in certain areas, one of which is the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises,” Kwon Young-se, the Yoon government’s top official on inter-Korean ties, said in a radio interview last week.

Under the previous U.S. and South Korean administrations, the allies suspended or scaled back their drills as they worked to engage North Korea through diplomacy and denuclearization talks.

But the talks collapsed three years ago, and the situation has evolved along with North Korea’s weapons development.

“The decision to resume training in full scale reflects the shared position of the Yoon and Biden administrations that diplomacy should be based foremost on a strong defense posture, and that advancing the ability of the alliance to deter North Korea should be prioritized,” Choi said. “It demonstrates a shared understanding of North Korean intent and the need to bolster the alliance’s defense posture in response to advances in North Korean military capabilities, as well as shifting regional and global security dynamics.”

Why has North Korea stopped boasting about its missile tests?

In recent years, the two countries sometimes held computer simulation exercises, which experts say could not adequately replicate field exercises. Kim, of RAND, said full-scale drills are vital given rising threats of conflict throughout Northeast Asia and are a way of signaling to North Korea that the allies are no longer “tiptoeing around Kim lest we provoke him.”

“This is a step towards normalizing alliance military coordination and training. We’re picking up where we left off after hitting the snooze button for several years,” she said.

In previous years, North Korea has typically responded to U.S.-South Korea exercises by launching missiles or sending army units to the demilitarized zone, as well as verbal attacks. In an interview with Associated Press Television last month, Choe Jin, deputy director of a think tank run by the North Korean Foreign Ministry, warned of “unprecedented” security challenges in response to the drills.

Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s sister who often serves as a public-facing critic on behalf of the regime, was quoted in state media on Friday slamming Yoon and his economic outreach. She called the South Korean president “a knave who talks about ‘bold plan’ today and stages anti-north war exercises tomorrow.”

“The way Imran Khan made his speech and the threats he made led to fear and terror among the police, judiciary and the common people and it harmed the peace of country,” they wrote in the report.

Since Khan was ousted from power in April, he has held boisterous rallies castigating the government. The former cricket star has maintained his strong political base and gained momentum in local elections. By contrast, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who replaced Khan, has made little progress in addressing the dire economic crisis that sent consumer prices skyrocketing.

Hours after news of the charge broke, hundreds of Khan’s supporters gathered outside his residence in Islamabad, the capital, in an effort to prevent his arrest.

“Imran Khan’s arrest is a ‘red line’ for us. If this line is crossed that would lead to something very bad, not good for the people and for the country,” said Murad Saeed, a senior official in the Tehreek-e-Insaf party, which is led by Khan.

“We want to remain within the bounds of the constitution, but people are upset, very angry,” he said, warning that the popular unrest could “destroy” the sitting government.

With political tensions rising, Pakistan launches media crackdown

Saeed and other party leaders have called on thousands more to come to Islamabad and “protect their leader.”

Khan’s chief of staff, Shahbaz Gill, was arrested earlier this month after he made comments on a talk show that the government deemed “anti-military.” Khan alleges that Gill was tortured during his imprisonment, a claim the government denies.

Khan and his party already faced a partial media ban. Authorities have prohibited the live broadcast of his speeches, and the news channel that Gill made his remarks on was banned. Two news anchors associated with the same channel fled the country after reportedly being harassed by the government.

Channel 4 said the interview, widely regarded as a public relations catastrophe for the Duke of York, will be “reimagined” as part of the musical. Critics tore into the prince for appearing to show no empathy for the abused victims of Epstein, who killed himself in prison in August 2019.

Comedian Kieran Hodgson is to lead a cast of comics in “Prince Andrew: The Musical,” a 60-minute program described as a “satirical send-up of the life and times” of the duke set to a musical score.

The show is part of a 40-year anniversary season of shows called “Truth or Dare” for Britain’s fourth TV broadcaster, which launched in 1982. It has not yet been announced exactly when it will air.

Andrew has been in U.K. headlines for years due to his marriage and divorce with Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson.

But he has tried to stay out of the public spotlight after reaching a multimillion-pound settlement last year with a woman who filed a U.S. lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault when she was 17. Andrew was stripped of his honorary military titles in January and told he can no longer use the title “his royal highness.”

Follow all AP stories on British royalty at https://apnews.com/hub/ queen-elizabeth-ii.

Dr. Tetiana Myroshnychenko carefully connects the tubes that allow Veronika to feed on her mother’s stored breast milk and ease her hunger.

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, three hospitals in government-controlled areas of the country’s war-torn Donetsk region had facilities to care for premature babies. One was hit by a Russian airstrike and the other had to close as a result of the fighting ‒ leaving only the maternity hospital in the coal mining town of Pokrovsk still operating.

Myroshnychenko, the site’s only remaining neonatologist, now lives at the hospital. Her 3-year-old son divides the week between staying at the facility and with his father, a coal miner, at home.

The doctor explains why it’s now impossible to leave: Even when the air-raid sirens sound, the babies in the hospital’s above-ground incubation ward cannot be disconnected from their lifesaving machines.

“If I carry Veronika to the shelter, that would take five minutes. But for her, those five minutes could be critical,” Myroshnychenko says.

Hospital officials say the proportion of births occurring prematurely or with complications has roughly doubled this year compared to previous times, blaming stress and rapidly worsening living standards for taking a toll on the pregnant women still left in the area.

Russia and Moscow-backed separatists now occupy just over half the Donetsk region, which is similar in size to Sicily or Massachusetts. Pokrovsk is still in a Ukrainian government-controlled area 60 kilometers (40 miles) west of the front lines.

Inside the hospital’s maternity wards, talk of the war is discouraged.

“Everything that happens outside this building of course concerns us, but we don’t talk about it,” Myroshnychenko said. “Their main concern right now is the baby.”

Although fighting in the Dontesk region started back in 2014, when Russia-backed separatists began battling the government and taking over parts of the region, new mothers are only now being kept in the hospital for longer periods because there’s little opportunity for them to receive care once they have been discharged.

Among them is 23-year-old Inna Kyslychenko, from Pokrovsk. Rocking her 2-day-old daughter Yesenia, she was considering joining the region’s massive evacuation westward to safer areas in Ukraine when she leaves the hospital. Many essential services in government-held areas of the Donetsk region — heat, electricity, water supplies — have been damaged by Russian bombardment, leaving living conditions that are only expected to worsen as the winter grows near.

“I fear for the little lives, not only for ours, but for all the children, for all of Ukraine,” Kyslychenko said.

More than 12 million people in Ukraine have fled their homes due to the war, according to U.N. relief agencies. About half have been displaced within Ukraine and the rest have moved to other European countries.

Moving the maternity hospital out of Pokrovsk, however, is not an option.

“If the hospital was relocated, the patients would still have to remain here,” said chief physician Dr. Ivan Tsyganok, who kept working even when the town was being hit by Russian rocket fire.

“Delivering babies is not something that can be stopped or rescheduled,” he noted.

The nearest existing maternity facility is in Ukraine’s neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, a 3 1/2 hour drive along secondary roads, a journey considered too risky for women in late-term pregnancy.

Last week, 24-year-old Andrii Dobrelia and his wife Maryna, 27, reached the hospital from a nearby village. Looking anxious, they talked little as doctors carried out a series of tests and then led Maryna to the operating room for a C-section. Tsyganok and his colleagues hurriedly changed their clothes and prepared for the procedure.

Twenty minutes later, the cries of a newborn baby boy, Timur, could be heard. After an examination, Timur was taken to meet his father in an adjoining room.

Almost afraid to breathe, Andrii Dobrelia tenderly kissed Timur’s head and whispered to him. As the newborn calmed down on his father’s chest, tears came to Andrii’s eyes.

As the war reaches the six-month mark, Tsyganok and his colleagues says they have a more hopeful reason to stay.

“These children we are bringing into the world will be the future of Ukraine,” says Tsyganok. “I think their lives will be different to ours. They will live outside war.” ___ Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine